Nikon ViewNX-i or Elements RAW or ACDSee Ultimate 9

[carll]

Hi all

Let me be clear, I am an inexperienced amature with a small budget. I have been evaluating the above three programs for over a week to decide on the best program to edit my RAW files, before going to further adjustments.

Now it maybe that I end up with one or more programs as there will be no best fit, but I am trying.
My process is take a challenging RAW image with a large range of tones, and carry out the basic adjustments on the RAW before moving on to further improvements (layers etc).

Now, try as I might I cannot seem to get as good an image from the other two programs, as I do from ViewNX-i for RAW editing, it seems over the last week to have become my benchmark to which I have tried to get as good results from other programs. It might be free, but is a little flaky, takes ages to save a TIF or even just zoom in on an image!

So, I was wondering on other people's experience of using ViewNX-i; is it really the best RAW converter for Nikons, or am I being a total noob and just not using the other programs correctly?

Carl.

[NorthernFocus]

First off, are you using ViewNX-i or Capture NX-D? ViewNX is intended to be a viewer and Capture NX an editor.

The reason you are seeing a major difference is presumably because you are shooting with a Nikon camera and the Nikon software renders the RAW image with the camera settings at time of capture. In other words the camera was set to neutral, standard, vivid, etc. which are all combinations of contrast, saturation, sharpness, etc. The Nikon software reads those settings and you see them when you view the RAW file and they transfer to any TIFF or JPEG that you create.

The NEF file is a proprietary format that Nikon does not share with software companies. So any other RAW converter that you use other than Nikon's can not read the in-camera settings other than WB. So what you start with is a truly raw image in the literal sense of the word. From the very start it is up to you to adjust contrast, saturation, etc.

Many people start out as you are by using the camera manufacturer's RAW processor plus a free or inexpensive additional program. Until you begin to understand post processing and your particular needs that's not a bad way to go. But yes, in general the Nikon software isn't so great. They aren't a software company

[carll]

First off, are you using ViewNX-i or Capture NX-D? ViewNX is intended to be a viewer and Capture NX an editor.

Hi Dan. I have both ViewNX-i and Capture NX-D. I believe Nikon mean these to act as and have, separate functions with ViewNX-i being the RAW editor, viewer and sorter, and Capture NX-D, well I am not sure quite what it is meant for ?! ViewNX-i has very good non destructive RAW editing settings, which is what I have been trying. I have being trying to compare it to ACR and the develop tab of ACDSee Ultimate 9.

The reason you are seeing a major difference is presumably because you are shooting with a Nikon camera and the Nikon software renders the RAW image with the camera settings at time of capture. In other words the camera was set to neutral, standard, vivid, etc. which are all combinations of contrast, saturation, sharpness, etc. The Nikon software reads those settings and you see them when you view the RAW file and they transfer to any TIFF or JPEG that you create.

I have elements 13 and this uses camera RAW 9.0. On the third tab you have the ability to select the alternative camera settings such as vivid, standard, portrait etc. This suggests that ACR at least, can read the RAW file at least quite well?

The NEF file is a proprietary format that Nikon does not share with software companies. So any other RAW converter that you use other than Nikon's can not read the in-camera settings other than WB. So what you start with is a truly raw image in the literal sense of the word. From the very start it is up to you to adjust contrast, saturation, etc.

See above.

Many people start out as you are by using the camera manufacturer's RAW processor plus a free or inexpensive additional program. Until you begin to understand post processing and your particular needs that's not a bad way to go. But yes, in general the Nikon software isn't so great. They aren't a software company

I guess that I am interested in what other Nikon users use PP wise, and if they have also noticed a marked difference in the quality of RAW processing. I think I am doubting myself as most people use I would guess, ACR, and if there really was a dramatic difference, more people would use the Nikon software. There was another post recently from someone asking about other people's PP work flow, and I saw very few people saying they used ViewNX-i as the start of their PP work flow.

Carl.

[DanK]

I don't shoot Nikon, but I think the bottom line is that how images appear when first rendered tells you nothing about the quality of raw processing software. All such software has to start somewhere. ACR by default will use Adobe standard, but I think they also have profiles that emulate the major camera manufacturer's. However, none of that matters much, as it is just a starting point. Whatever settings it uses as a default you can change. The real questions are (1) how much can the software do, and (2) how high-quality are the products, once you know how to use them?

[NorthernFocus]

I am a Nikon shooter and for 6-8 years used Nikon software as RAW converter and PS Elements. When Nikon contracted Nik to develop Capture NX for them it was pretty good. However I never used it heavily as the Nik interface is significantly different from Adobe products. Most other third party software seems to more or less mimic the Adobe interface in order to be as seamless as possible so they can fritter away a few Adobe users.

As far as I understand it, the standard, vivid, etc settings in ACR are NOT reading the NEF settings. They have tried to mimic them to some degree. Otherwise you'd likely not be asking why they look different

Based on all of the various discussions I've participated in with other photographers over the years, software selection typically has as much or more to do with seamless transition between packages and/or with plug-ins than it does with ultimate quality. With virtually any of them you can produce the same end product from a RAW beginning. It's just a question of how difficult it is to get there. ACR is fairly seamless with Photoshop products so many PS users choose ACR for a RAW converter. Light Room is essentially the ACR engine with the addition of the cataloging features. So again many PS users who want the cataloging us LR for RAW converter.

I myself abandoned the Nikon products when they parted company with Nik/Google. I bit the bullet and switched to LR. Interestingly due to the 8-bit limitations I subsequently abandoned PSE and now use LR in conjunction with ON1 which interfaces pretty well.

So in direct response to your wondering, there is no difference in "quality" of RAW processors assuming you're referring to image quality. There are many differences in interfaces, tools, etc. contained within and therefore there ARE significant differences in the software itself. Nikon users in this forum are all over the place with there software choices and we all seem to muddle through.

[Mike Buckley]

Carl,

I'm a longtime user of Nikon cameras and software and I still use Nikon's Capture NX2, a raw converter and image editor discontinued years ago for legal reasons and far more capable than anything Nikon currently has on the market. At the outset, ViewNX-i was intended mostly to be a viewing program and Capture NX-D was intended to be their most sophisticated raw converter and image editor once they dropped Capture NX2. Even though View NX-i might have improved to include some image-editing capabilities since I followed this stuff, my guess is that Capture NX-D is still the superior image editor coming from Nikon.

Having said all of that, there was a time years ago when Nikon's raw converter was the best when working with Nikon files because only Nikon knew the "secret sauce" to make everything work properly. These days there are many raw converters that very capably emulate the result of applying Nikon's proprietary information stored in its raw files. So, I encourage you to give non-Nikon products a serious try.

To get to the thrust of your basic question, a very small portion of the market uses Nikon software to convert raw files, much less to make adjustments that further refines the image. My point is that you certainly don't need Nikon software to consistently produce absolutely wonderful images, as evidenced by the vast majority of the market that uses non-Nikon software to make that happen. That includes free software such as GIMP.

[Shadowman]

I think one of the reasons why I started bypassing View NX was because it didn't have noise reduction, often I would want to perform NR before other processes and always had to hold off until I could get the image through another editor. Therefore, View NX was relegated to a "use when nothing else was available" status. I do use it when shooting jpegs and have in-camera NR set but very rarely.